Pages

Wednesday, 14 December 2011

How to Make Soap Powder

I've been making our own soap powder on and off for years. I used to make a liquid version but it requires making large amounts and our house is too tiny to store it safely with two children who can't read labels on bottles.

So now I prefer to make powdered soap. It's easy to make and easy to store the finished product and the ingredients up high.

Simply grate one bar of pure soap into a container. I couldn't resist buying a tin container marked as laundry powder when I saw it, but I used to just use an icecream container.

Add a cup of soda/washing crystals.......

Then a cup of borax and stir the ingredients. Couldn't be easier, could it.﻿

I use about 1/2 cup in my front loader. You do need to dissolve it in hot water before pouring it into the machine. I keep a plastic yoghurt container and spoon in my laundry for this purpose.

Now, an observation I have made along the way. If I use a box of bought pure soap flakes, it dissolves beautifully. With my hand grated soap mixture, the soap just softens in the hot water but doesn't dissolve. I still choose the bar of soap though because I get four bars in a small amount of cardboard as compared to much more packaging for the soap flakes. It is also cheaper.

One more point worth mentioning - I did once gum up my washing machine with soap gloop. I had to pull it apart and get the gloop out of the pipes. This can be prevented by occasionally using a hot cycle. So if you washed sheets or similar on a hot wash every month or so, this wouldn't be a problem. Make sure that you don't accidentally put your favourite cardigan in this cycle like I did! I no longer have my lovely cardi!

5 comments:

Wondering if you pre-soak your dry mix in the yoghurt container, rather than use hot water just before use? Just make up a new mix with water straight after you put on your load.We are currently using soap nuts and Sard Wonder Soap combo for the tough stuff, but might give your mix a try. Sounds good.

Hi Linda, I have found a really easy way to make the soap flakes smaller so it dissolves quickly in my washing machine. I grate the soap in my food processor using the grating blade. Then I tip this out and put my cutting blade into the food processor and put the grated soap flakes back in. The soap then is more finely grated, then I put in my washing soda and borax and mix together and add an essential oil.

I run enough warm water into the machine to dissolved and fill the rest with cold.

The only challenge I have is that my husbands singlets are no longer white, they are gradually turning grey, any suggestions.

I have tried the soap nuts, they were not successful in getting out the oil/fat based stains, especially in t-shirt and cheap fabrics.

Then I turned to the home-made washing powder, more success, but I often pre-treat the stains (if I can see them) with vinegar.